One Touch
by Sanctuaria
Summary: She's sitting at the cold metal table...again. But this time it's different. Her name's been cleared, so why is she still here? Unfortunately, she has information they need. Information that raises more questions than it answers.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, settings, events, or anything else taken from the Syfy TV show _Sanctuary_. No copyright infringement is intended.**

September 8, 2006

"I'm not crazy!" I almost screamed at him, the man across the table. Despite my anger, he still looked perfectly calm, and, if anything, bored.

"Is he here yet?" he asked the man outside the door.

"They just called him from his office," the man replied. The metal table was cold under my hands, turning my fingers to ice.

"Let's go over this again," Detective Kavanaugh said. "You were in your apartment, sleeping, at the time Mr. Rox was killed."

"Yes," I said, drawing out the word. "The owner confirmed that. You already talked to him."

"We've taken your name off the suspect list," the man sighed, "But if you were in your room sleeping and have never seen the Roxes before, how do you know that Mr. Larch is the killer?"

"Hey, Joe," another guy walked in, "I'll take her from here."

"Take her," Detective Kavanaugh said, "She's a tough one, all right. Miss Terrei, this is Dr. Zimmerman."

"Let's go back to my office," Dr. Zimmerman told me, gesturing for me to stand up. He was younger than I was expecting, early thirties? He wore thin framed glasses with short dirty blonde hair. He led me down a flight of steps into a small hallway and into an office. It was a rather dreary place, with only a single lamp for light. It had no windows, like a prison cell. The small bookcase was full of mystery and reference books, and there were no stray papers on the desk. They were all neatly filed in folders. This Dr. Zimmerman seemed very organized.

"Have a seat," he said, and sat down on the other side of the desk. I wished he would offer to shake my hand, but he didn't. Then I'd have really known who I was dealing with.

I've learned not to trust people that much. After they lied to me about my mother, I learned that no police officer—detective, psychiatrist, whatever—is to be trusted. When I was thirteen, I was called into the police office for the murder of my mother.

Apparently I had been found sitting next to her body, both of us scratched and battered from the shattered glass around us. All the windows in the house had been shattered, and one shard had found her heart. I was unresponsive in my hunched position, distant and remote. "Her eyes were open, but she saw nothing," one of the police had described it. Doctors had put it down as many different things, shock, a mental condition, etc. I finally came to five hours after the incident, with no memory of what had happened. I was very confused at why I was at the police station when my last memory had been running out of the house, angry at my mother for making me go to a youth conference thing at school that day.

Since I was the only suspect they had in my mother's death, the police eagerly jotted that down under motive. But what they couldn't figure out was how the glass got embedded so deeply in her chest. The neighbors had seen nothing, and had heard only a high pitched scream around the time of the incident. I was released about a month later, when all their lines of investigation had hit dead ends. They put me in a foster home, with another boy, Alex.

Alex and I didn't like each other, although his parents were nice. Unfortunately, they tended to side with him, their "real" son, even though they'd always wanted a daughter. Well, of course, I ended up being right about Alex. From the first time I'd touched him, I knew he was a bad kid. He was my age, thirteen, and often didn't come home after school right away. He called it "homework-ing" at this kid Lawrence's house. He and a couple of other guys hung out there after school doing homework. Alex came home late at night, but as long as he had his homework done his parents didn't care. What Alex and his friends were really doing was drinking after school. One of his buddies would steal the homework off one of the brainy kids in their classes during school and the rest of them would copy it and turn it in as their own.

When Alex's parents found out, they had reluctantly returned me to foster care, saying their first parenting job had been a disaster and they didn't want to do that to me. They also said it was going to be hard enough to get Alex back on the right track; another child to take care of would just make it worse. So, after two years at that home, I was transferred to another.

The next foster home wasn't much better. They had a small boy, fourteen, while I had just turned sixteen. He did well in school and was a good kid, but his parents were polar opposites and often clashed against one another. His mom, a high school dropout, constantly pushed Andrew to do well. In the first month I was with them, she pushed him to get straight A's. Then, later, she demanded that he get A+'s in each subject. The poor kid struggled and managed to do it, but his mother always wanted more. A+'s became 100%s and those became 110%s. Andrew began to be very quiet and spent all his time studying. If he missed a single question on his homework, his mother would scream at him that he was never going to get into a good college that way.

His father was no different. Carl Waka was a big man and had graduated from the local community college here in Old City. We rarely saw him as he worked from eight to six at McDonalds and then went with his buddies until he got home around ten. I don't think I ever saw him once without a beer bottle. If it wasn't in his hand, it was sitting on the table next to him. He had a huge belly and liked to complain loudly on all the McDonalds gossip that no one cared about.

Unfortunately, the college I wanted to go to was very close to the Waka house—so close I got to live at "home." Finally, my day of liberation came. I turned eighteen on April 17, 2006. Four months ago. I wasted no time in getting my own apartment near my college, paying for it with my desk job. Which brings me to here. No longer thought to be a suspect in the murder of Mr. Daniel Rox, but thought to be crazy instead. Such a nice change. I was right about Alex. I was right about Melissa, my best friend in fourth grade. I'd known as soon as we first touched that she was good. In fifth grade, she had saved a kindergartener's life as he wandered out onto a busy street alone. So, really, am I crazy?

Ever since I had bumped into Charles Larch in the hallway as he was led to his interrogation room, I knew it was him. He was the murderer. When I tried to tell the police, it just raised suspicions again. How did she know? Was she really there; was her alibi faked? All that had brought me here, sitting across the desk from Dr. Zimmerman.

He flipped through my file, scanning the pages. "Okay…Aura, right?" he asked finally.

"Yeah," I replied.

"I'm forensic psychiatrist Will Zimmerman," he told me, "Will."

"And you too think I'm crazy, Dr. Zimmerman?" I asked.

"I don't think anything," he assured me, "I don't know you yet. Why don't we just talk for a bit? Let's start with…"


	2. Chapter 2

September 8, 2006

I'm not crazy. I don't need to see a shrink. I'm not crazy. I don't need to see a shrink. I'm not crazy. I don't need to see a shrink. I'm not crazy. I don't need to see a shrink. I'm not crazy. I don't need to see a shrink. I'm not crazy. I don't need to see a shrink. I'm not crazy. I don't need to see a shrink. I'm not crazy. I don't need to see a shrink. I'm not crazy. I don't need to see a shrink. I'm not—"Aura, would you look at this with me?" Dr. Zimmerman was back, his voice cutting through my thoughts.

"Mmm, what?" I asked.

"What were you thinking about?"

"Just stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

I shrugged.

"Aura, in this evaluation, I need you to answer my questions."

"Fine," I said. "I have a piece of homework for college and I was trying to remember if I'd done it or not."

"You and I both know that's not what you were thinking about," he replied. Drat. Psychiatrist.

"I was thinking about how I'm not crazy and that I should've just kept my mouth shut about Daniel Rox and let the police arrest the wrong man."

"Aura, how do you know Mr. Larch murdered him?" He took my hands in his large, warm, and slightly calloused ones. "You're safe here. I just need to know what really happened. Did you see Mr. Larch…?" At his touch, my eyes flashed up to look into his blue ones. Dr. Zimmerman. Will Zimmerman. He was interesting. He was good, like my friend Melissa. He meant neither me nor anyone else any harm. "—kill Daniel Rox?"

"What? Uh, no…" I said distractedly. The power to know someone by touch was disconcerting. I don't know when I first realized I could do it. Maybe at Alex's house. That foster home. The first after my mother's death.

"That will be all for today, Aura," Dr. Zimmerman said, closing the file folder on his desk. "I'll see you here again tomorrow." I pushed my chair back and left, closing the door behind me. I walked down the narrow hallway back into the lobby. I pushed open the door and a hot breath of air hit me. Texas. I walked down the steps and to my car, a light blue convertible. There's something about wind blowing through your hair while driving that's relaxing (besides free air conditioning). When I turned eighteen, I was able to access my inheritance. I had pushed myself hard and my entire college time was being paid for by scholarships. With that, my desk job, and my inheritance, I figured it was okay to pay for a bit of a nicer car. It's not like I already had one. The Wakas never would have let me have one. I paid for my own driving lessons even.

I hopped into the car, put on my sunglasses, and turned the key. Once I was safely out of the parking lot, I hit the accelerator.


End file.
